


it birthed you, it molds you, it tears you apart

by bean_me_up



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Drabble Series, Gen, Vignettes, the lost decade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bean_me_up/pseuds/bean_me_up
Summary: The lost decade, told through the clothes they wear.A series of twenty-one 100 word vignettes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	it birthed you, it molds you, it tears you apart

Packing is hard. She and Rosa shared a closet for so long it's hard to tell what's hers and what isn't, and every time she picks up something she _knows_ her sister bought, she expects to hear an indignant shout from the bed next to hers. She does not.

It's just _her_ room now. The clothes are hers now, too. All of Rosa's armor, empty shells on plastic hangers.

Because armor protects from the outside, not the inside. And Rosa's demons got her in the end.

Liz shoves clothes in a bag without looking, then leaves without a backwards glance.

* * *

He doesn't take much with him. Everything in his closet screams 'angry queer kid' and he doesn't _want_ that to follow him.

He's still gay, he's still angry, but now, more than anything, he's _scared._ Because, sure, the skinny jeans and band shirts and ice cube-and-needle piercings were _control_ and _rebellion_ when he had nothing else, but _his_ rebellion had gotten _someone else_ hurt.

He doesn't pack his own clothes. He takes leftovers from Flint and Greg and Clay, bland and neutral and as devoid of personality as he can manage. He'll spend most of his time in uniform, anyway.

* * *

Her mother gifts her a Coach bag for graduation. Pale beige with matching stitching, simple, elegant. But the logo is in shiny gold, always catching the bright sunlight. It's the most expensive thing she's ever owned.

But she _understands_.

The circles her mother runs in, the circles she's about to join, look for intangible markers of _class_ and _sophistication_ , and a nice handbag is one of them.

She takes it with her to work, where she picks the right projects, makes the right friends, says the right things, does everything she's _supposed_ to do. She makes a life for herself.

* * *

Michael's never been picky about his clothes. Threadbare, thrift store clearance bin necessities are all he's ever really owned.

They're not strong enough for work on a ranch. His shirts do nothing to fend off the early morning chill, and, before long, his jeans are frayed in more places than one.

One morning, a box is shoved into his arms. A couple of flannel shirts, some faded jeans in sturdy denim, and a scuffed pair of work boots. None of the other ranch hands say anything, but he gets some approving nods when he pulls the boots on. They fit.

* * *

Out here in Michigan, he's just another kid from a small town in a mostly irrelevant state. No one cares that he was the quarterback of the football team, or that his dad's the sheriff, or that he won homecoming king two years in a row. The most interesting thing about him is that he's from a quirky tourist destination for the alien-obsessed.

The idea of being a _nobody_ stirs an anxiety in his gut he hasn't felt since he was twelve. He trades his varsity jacket for a maize-and-blue sweatshirt and resolves to leave Roswell far, _far_ behind him.

* * *

His parents and Isobel all come to his graduation from the police academy. He's dressed in his uniform, his badge, polished and shiny, attached to it.

They all look so proud, and he feels it too. But the pride is tempered by guilt. He's promising to _protect_ Roswell, _his community_. But it's all fake. Because he's faking it. This is not _his_ community, he's not from anywhere _near_ here. And as for _protecting_ these people, well, he's reminded of the stains on his hands every time he drives past the three white crosses on the side of the dusty road.

* * *

She thinks she's like a frog. Because the brightest and most colorful ones send a message: do not touch me. It's _armor,_ like Rosa would say. She dresses in loud, vivid shades, mixes styles like she mixes drinks behind the bar and she makes it _work_ because she's Maria DeLuca.

Money's tight. Money's always tight. But she smiles pretty for tips, bargains up a storm at the local thrift stores, and tailors it all to _perfection_ with her mother's rickety sewing machine.

So when patrons get sleazy and banks get greedy she adds another bracelet to her wrist. A warning.

* * *

Picking a major is easy. Picking a school is less so.

She doesn't feel anything that makes her want to _stick_ to a place. So she's got a collection of hoodies from schools she no longer goes to. She keeps the credits, loses the place and the people and starts again somewhere new.

There's always something missing. A class that she _needs,_ a research project she _has_ to be a part of, _something._

It's always easy to find that _something._

She graduates eventually. She doesn't remember what her school's colors are until she goes to buy her cap and gown.

* * *

Michael spends his time cold and exhausted. His jacket doesn't do _enough_ against the biting winter, but he can't afford a better one. He's putting every bit of his free time and his savings into buying the old Airstream off of Sanders. To _own_ the bed he sleeps in, for once.

The old man's happy enough to let him work after the sun sets at the ranch. He works through the holidays, because what difference does that make? But Sanders tosses a package at him some evening around Christmas. Michael keeps his new belt buckle polished. Wears it every day.

* * *

The wedding dress is _perfect_. Simple, elegant, classy, _beautiful._ Impeccably, carefully constructed.

The right combination of modern and traditional. It'll look lovely on one half of Roswell's _perfect_ couple.

Isobel had done well for herself, according to her mother. A nice man, handsome, a good job, a real pillar of the community. It's the sort of match that draws envious sighs at bridge club, cements Isobel's place in Roswell's social hierarchy.

The dress fits like a glove. And she fits right next to Noah. She'd found the _perfect_ man for herself, taken the inevitable next step.

She's doing everything _right_.

* * *

The tuxedo is tailored to his specifications.

It chokes him like a vise.

Isobel had found a nice man. Noah had proposed, they were getting _married._

Isobel was moving onward, upward, _forward,_ while he was stuck behind, working, eating, sleeping, _stagnant._

He wants to be happy for his twin. And he fakes it so well nobody notices. But nobody fakes it quite like Isobel, apparently.

The perfect Roswell life.

He can't hide in plain sight like she can. He's becoming a recluse. Ranch house on the outskirts of town, no girlfriend, no _friends._ But Isobel's happy, and that's what matters.

* * *

She saves up to buy a suit _._

Every day's a hustle. Up early to handle payroll and bills and suppliers, up late to keep up with the drunks that keep her bar afloat.

She doesn't get the respect she knows she deserves _._ That she's _earned._ Because she still gets called _sweetheart_ by the men she's trying to negotiate bulk pricing with and the town council had referred to her as a _girl_ last time she'd pitched a proposal and she's so _tired_ of not being taken seriously when she plays the game better than anyone else.

The suit says _serious._

* * *

For the first time in his life, he successfully blends in.

The beige camouflage helps him and his men blur into the sandy desert landscape.

And back on base, his uniform may say _Manes_ in blocky capitals, but no one cares. He's just another airman, far from home, trying to remember what exactly he's fighting for. He's not _friends_ with his team, but the camaraderie they share, the one forged in fire and bullets and things they will never forget, is the closest thing to brotherhood he's had in a long while. He's lonely, sure, but it's not so bad.

* * *

His parents fly out for his white coat ceremony. They take him out to dinner after, some fancy place he couldn't _dream_ of affording right now, not buried in loans like he is.

They're proud of him. But, honestly, he's already thinking about his plans for the next four years. He's always been good at getting what he wants, but now he's thinking _bigger,_ so far past Roswell's city limits it's hard to sit still through dessert.

He's going to be a surgeon. To save lives, sure, but he wants the glory, too. A name to remember, someone who _matters._

* * *

He keeps collecting medals on his uniform. It must mean he's pretty good at his job.

Doesn't matter though. There's nothing he can do that one of his brothers hasn't already.

The Purple Heart is new, though. That one's a first for the Manes boys. It gets him a slow, awkward parade and strangers thanking him for his service.

It also gets him weeks in and out of consciousness in a hospital, _months_ of painful, frustrating physical therapy, learning to walk again, a new reality he doesn't really want to face.

In the uniform, no one can see the prosthetic.

* * *

She buys herself a watch with her first profit from her new event planning company. She's _good_ at her job, and her new watch, small and delicate, glints in the light as she hands out yet another business card. The independence, the _control_ that comes with being self-employed, with _owning_ her own firm, is _delightful._

Isobel Evans-Bracken is making a new reputation for herself. Someone capable, professional, _punctual_. Not just Ann's daughter, or Noah's wife, or one of the Evans twins. She's _Isobel._ A business owner. Event planner. Best in town. She makes a note to order more business cards.

* * *

Isobel tries, multiple times, unsuccessfully, to hire him. He's lived to regret every time he's taken someone's charity, so he's not about to let this be another thing between them. He tells her he likes his job at the ranch, the wide open spaces, fresh air. He's always been good with his hands, good with numbers and data, good with hard work. Isobel doesn't really seem to believe him.

She buys him a black Stetson. He looks every bit a cowboy now, she tells him. The hat flattens his curls in hilarious ways but he hardly ever takes it off.

* * *

As she gets older, Liz understands Rosa a little better. Understands the makeup, the layers of jewelry, the dark clothes. Starts putting together pieces of her own armor. Because she needs it. It's subtle, how she starts lining her eyes just a little bit darker, or how she adds another necklace to the collection under her lab coat. Just like it's subtle how her male colleagues go to drinks without her or how they assume she needs help understanding her own damn study. She wonders how Rosa would handle it, loud and fiery and unapologetic. She wishes she could ask.

* * *

She gets shirts made with the Wild Pony's logo across the front. She doesn't wear one herself, because she's never been one for a uniform, but her employees do.

It's a good reminder, that this is the bar that she _owns._ A blessing and a burden in turn. It reminds her that people _rely_ on her for their paychecks, for the food on their family's tables. And it reminds her that not so long ago, _she_ was the one who'd been working for a paycheck signed by someone else. It keeps the fire in her _burning,_ keeps her moving, always.

* * *

He finds himself back in Roswell. Because the universe is cruel and he's a bit dense and it takes his father _dying_ and the whole blurry mess of funeral arrangements and people offering condolences and _so_ many stories about his dad to make him realize _why_ exactly parents had decided to make their lives in this town.

Kyle's still going to be the best damn surgeon he can be, but he wants to be a _good_ man like his dad, do him proud, be someone who helps people, who helps his _community._ And he's going to do it in Roswell.

* * *

He's never cared about the clothes he wears. Hardly anyone sees him out of his deputy's uniform, and the walls of his house tend not to have opinions.

Isobel, on the other hand, cares very much about the clothes he wears. She drags him along to some street fair, pulls him by the hand to talk to some artists who make bracelets and belt buckles and things.

They remind him of Michael. He _sees_ Michael plenty. But they hardly ever talk. It's not the same.

He buys a buckle that reminds him of Michael's, just to pretend for a moment.

* * *

Everyone looks different.

She looks the same. Because she was _dead_ and in some weird alien egg thing, and no part of her has changed for _ten years._

So it's jarring, seeing Liz shielding herself with red lipstick and leather jackets, seeing Max in his deputy's outfit, seeing Michael in a cowboy's duds.

Isobel dresses like a younger Mrs. Evans, which make an inevitable sort of sense.

Alex in his fatigues breaks her heart a little bit. It wasn't meant to be like this.

She feels a sort of pride in Maria, who's managed to keep her unique style intact even if she dresses like an adult now. She still does a double take whenever she sees Kyle in his scrubs, because, really, _how the hell did that happen?_

But now it's her turn. Rosa Ortecho needs a new look because Rosa Ortecho is dead. She gets to reinvent herself. She wonders what she'd dress like if she hadn't died. If she would have left behind smudgey eyeliner and ripped band tees for fancy blouses or a painter's smock. She didn't get to figure that out like everyone else. She has to pick her clothesand hope the life follows suit.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on tumblr @ bean-me-up!](https://bean-me-up.tumblr.com/)


End file.
